Advertising Expert Witnesses

Dr. Larry Chiagouris has a rare combination serving as a senior Fortune 500 executive and as an accomplished academician. He has provided expert testimony and written opinions on damages, marketing, advertising, intellectual property issues (including the use of survey research) for plaintiffs & defendants at major national & local firms.

Experience summary:

• Experience evenly divided between plaintiff and defendant engagements over 25 cases

• Several cases include elements of intellectual property issues

• Majority of cases involve elements of consumer behavior or survey research

• Majority of cases involve elements of advertising related strategies and tactics

• Majority of cases involve elements of Internet related tactics

• Majority of cases involve written opinions and depositions

• Written and oral testimony in several Federal District Court jurisdictions

• Engaged by both large multinational law firms and small boutique firms

• Class action cases evenly divided between plaintiffs and defendants

Selected by Agency Magazine as one of 10 best and brightest researchers. He brings extensive experience as a Senior Marketing, Branding and Research Executive responsible for directing major assignments for companies such as AT&T, Campbell Soup, Kraft, Miller Brewing, Peugeot, Pfizer, Prudential and Visa.

He has a Ph.D. in Marketing, is Past Chairman, Advertising Research Foundation and Former Director of the American Marketing Association.

Michael T. Motley, Ph.D. has over thirty-five years of experience in the fields of Communication & Psycholinguistics. Dr. Motley serves as an expert witness for opinions on the clarity, lack of clarity, and most likely interpretation of common messages such as warning labels, instructions, advertising, contracts, waivers, and so forth. He has served on over 30 cases; about 2/3 for plaintiff and 1/3 for defense.

Dr. Motley is a Professor Emeritus of Communication at the University of California at Davis. He has authored almost 200 books, articles, and research papers in communication and psycholinguistics. He has won eighteen excellence awards for his research and was recognized as among the "Top 1%" of communication scholars of the 1970's, 1980's, and 1990's.

Areas of Expertise:

• Communication Messages: Meaning, Ambiguity, Likely and Alternate Interpretations, Communicative Intention
• Adequacy/Inadequacy of Messages: Product Warnings, Instructions, Waivers, Advertisements
• Male / Female Misunderstandings: Sexual Consent/Resistance, Date Rape

Services Offered:

• Expert testimony & Consultation
• Opinion on Adequacy of Communication Messages
• Opinion on Likely Consumer Interpretation of Warnings, Instructions, Advertising
• Opinion on Likely Intrepretation of Sexual Resistance/Consent Messages and Behaviors
• Social-scientific testing of expert opinion (his and others')

View Consulting Profile.

Retained by 95+ Law Firms "I very strongly recommend Rhonda. She’s great to work with, and her work product is absolutely top-shelf." Greenberg & Traurig, LLP 

Trademark and Trade Dress Infringement | Surveys | Misleading and Deceptive Advertising | Licensing | Consumer Privacy | Commercial Reasonableness | Merchandising

Rhonda Harper MBA has provided consulting and testimony in cases involving trademarks and trade dress, advertising, branding, promotion, consumer privacy, consumer perceptions and behavior, innovation, product development and product launches, market analysis, market research, share and size, marketing effectiveness, corporate and marketing strategy, media relations, public relations, communications, and packaging.

Ms. Harper is routinely retained to formulate expert surveys, conduct rebuttal critiques, or construct rebuttal surveys to show the potential difference in results with properly designed and executed surveys. She has extensive experience and a deep understanding of survey design, sampling, question construction, data analysis, and methodological pitfalls that introduce bias or systematic error.

Located in Dallas, TX, Ms. Harper is a former Fortune 100 C-Suite Executive in marketing, branding, consumer research, strategy, licensing, public relations and advertising. Also a former Adjunct Marketing Professor, she has conducted  50+ intellectual property Lanham Act surveys, produced 75+ reports, been deposed 50+ times, and served in 20+ trials and arbitrations.

Internet Expert Witness: Peter Kent is the author of "Search Engine Optimization for Dummies," "Pay Per Click Search Engine Marketing for Dummies" and "Complete Idiot's Guide to the Internet." He has been online since 1984 and envolved with online marketing since 1990. Mr. Kent has worked as the Vice President of Marketing for a Web-applications development firm. He was also the Vice President of Web Solutions for a national ISP and the founder of a VC-funded e-business service provider. He has a wide range of Online-Marketing experience in many different industries.

Specialties Include:

• SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
• Search Engine "Linking" Campaigns
• PPC (Pay Per Click Advertising)
• Web Hosting
• Web Design
• Web Application Development,
• E-Commerce Site Development
• Web Project Management
• Affiliate Marketing
• Improving Online "Conversions"
• E-Mail Publishing
• Online PR
• "Community" Marketing

Dr. Thomas Maronick has provided both plaintiff and defense litigators with marketing and consumer expertise for over 25 years. Prior to that he was the in-house marketing expert at the FTC. Since leaving the FTC in 1997, Dr. Maronick has been qualified as an expert in numerous federal and state courts, providing expert reports, affidavits, and testimony on marketing, advertising, and consumer behavior matters. Dr. Maronick has designed and implemented over 300 consumer surveys for litigation and/or policy related strategies, using virtually every survey research methodology, including mall-intercept studies, telephone and mail surveys, and studies using the internet and consumer mail panels. Dr. Maronick has testified (deposition/trial) over 75 times in the past five years and is the author of research of the use of surveys in litigation. Areas of Expertise:

• False and Deceptive Advertising
• Deceptive Marketing Practices
• Consumer/Advertising Survey Research
• Packaging
• Trademark/Tradedress